Alias Emma by Ava Glass

Published by ‎ Bantam on August 2, 2022

Russian assassins have been killing former Russian scientists who were once affiliated with Elena Primolov, a Russian nuclear physicist who was an asset of MI6. Charles Ripley was once Elena’s handler and perhaps her lover. Ripley spirited Elena and her family out of Russia just before the KGB was going to swoop down upon her. Years later, Ripley has a senior position in the Secret Intelligence Service. When he learns that Russians who were once close to Elena are being targeted, Ripley moves Elena to a secure location. Just how secure it might be is open to question. Another Russian lodged in a safe house was just killed, leading Ripley to suspect that a Russian mole is working in the SIS.

Ripley is training a young agent whose code name is Emma Makepeace. He gives her a meaningless assignment to get her out of the way, then tasks her with persuading Elena’s son Michael to stay with his protected mother. Michael is a pediatric oncologist in London and wants nothing to do with cloak-and-dagger shenanigans until he changes his mind after the second time Emma saves his life.

Ed Masterson wants Ripley’s job. Does he undermine Ripley and Emma because he is a double agent or is he merely ambitious? Ripley’s future is unclear by novel’s end, as is the identity of the mole, assuming one exists (and in spy fiction, one always exists).

Most of Emma’s adventure involves an extended chase scene. To get Michael to safety, Emma must tamp down her growing lust for the doctor while navigating their way through London as they are being pursued by Russian assassins. The tour of London’s back alleys and underground waterway (to avoid the city’s network of cameras that the Russians have somehow hijacked) adds atmosphere to a story that is competent but unremarkable.

Emma is a bit of a lightweight as fictional spies go, likeable enough but not memorable. The reader doesn’t spend enough time with other characters to learn anything about them, apart from one-dimensional Michael, who is a stereotype of a perfect man. He loves kids and saves them from cancer. What could be better? How sad for Emma that her duty is to Queen and Country rather than her naughty bits.

While the ending wraps up the story of Russian assassins, it leaves enough questions unanswered to make clear that Alias Emma is the first in a series that will feature Emma’s adventures in espionage. Spy novel fans won’t put Alias Emma on top of their stack of 2022 spy novels, but it is worth reading as an introduction to a series that might gain more depth and intrigue as it progresses.

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Yesterday's Spy by Tom Bradby

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on August 2, 2022

Yesterday’s Spy is set against the background of the 1953 coup in Iran that displaced Mossadegh and elevated the Shah to power. The coup was planned and assisted by the American and British governments. The British wanted to assure that British oil companies would continue to earn the lion’s share of revenues from Iranian oil. The CIA supported the coup because of its obsession with communism. Neither government considered the long-term consequences of backing the Shah. Western meddling is largely responsible for the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Harry Tower is a British spy. Lacking a British public school pedigree, he knew he would always be regarded as an outsider by the SIS. Fortunately for Harry, Churchill noticed him and had his back. During World War II, Churchill decided to support Tito. With Churchill’s support, Harry and another SIS agent ran anti-communist operations in Yugoslavia, where Harry got to know KGB agent Oleg Vasilyev. One SIS operation involved British troops parachuting into the country. The operation went sideways because Russia learned of the plan before it began. The deaths of the paratroopers sit heavily on Tower’s conscience.

Harry’s son Sean is a journalist. Sean blames Harry for his mother’s suicide. Harry’s wife suffered from bouts of severe depression and, rather than being there when she cycled into a dark phase, Harry was off saving the world. Harry returned from an assignment and found Sean holding his mother’s body after cutting her from the rope she used to hang herself. Harry understandably blames himself but wishes he could do more for Sean, who wants nothing that Harry tries to give him.

Much of that background is developed through flashbacks. The novel begins in the planning stages of the coup. Harry learns that Sean has been kidnapped. He immediately heads to Tehran, where he meets Sean’s girlfriend, Shahnaz Salemi. Harry has had dealings with Shahnaz’s father. Shahnaz bonded with Sean in part because she and Sean both despised their fathers. Father-child relationships are at the heart of the novel.

The plot is typical of a decent spy thriller. Harry spends the novel chasing down leads (most of which suggest that Sean is dead or will be soon) and figuring out why Sean was kidnapped. Was it his reporting about the drug connection between the Iranian police and the French? Did he learn about the planned coup? Or was the kidnapping part of a plan to lure Harry back to Iran, a plan that involves a suspected mole in SIS? Harry connects with various spies (including Vasilyev), cops, criminals, members of the military, arms dealers, information brokers, and various players in Iranian government, gathering conflicting information as a noose seems to be tightening around Harry’s neck.

Yesterday’s Spy delivers the suspense that readers expect from a spy novel. The clock keeps ticking, both because there may be little time to save Sean if he still alive and because the fate of the Iranian government may change at any moment. Harry is involved in fistfights and shootouts, but his actions seem plausible. Harry is well trained but far from the super-heroic tough guy that is such a common thriller protagonist. It isn’t easy to warm up to Harry, in part because the background that shapes his characterization has made Harry insular and self-absorbed. Still, Tom Brady structured the novel to make it possible for the reader to appreciate the story without liking the protagonist.

As is typical of spy novels that incorporate a mole, the reader is asked to guess the mole’s identity. I guessed wrong, so Bradby scored a point for his surprising reveal. The ending is not only surprising, it is redemptive and satisfying.

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Winter Work by Dan Fesperman

Published by Knopf on July 12, 2022

Most of spy fiction’s best novels are set in the Cold War. Winter Work comes at the end of that war. The Berlin Wall has been down for about four months. East Germany is transitioning to unification. The Stasi offices are closed; files that were not burned are being ransacked or sold.

Emil Grimm is a former Stasi officer who is now unemployed. He had a desk job, running the Stasi operation to spy on NATO. He worries that the unified Germany will prosecute him for treason, as if he had some duty to be loyal to West Germany when he was a citizen of East Germany. His more urgent concern is how to pay for his wife’s medical treatment until reunification brings her into (West) Germany’s system of free healthcare. Emil’s wife is dying of a progressive disease and can no longer move.

Emil has a dacha outside Berlin and an apartment in the city, closer to his shuttered headquarters. One of his neighbors, Lothar Fischer, is also a Stasi officer. On his morning walk, Emil discovers Lothar’s body. The Stasi are already there, supposedly investigating, but they are soon chased away by the local police, who feel empowered to do their jobs now that the Stasi are no longer a thing.

Lothar apparently shot himself. Emil knows he was murdered. Emil also knows that Lothar was up to something. Emil knows that because he was up to something with Lothar.

On the novel’s other front, the CIA’s DDO is trying to get in bed with a Russian who wants to sell the identities of all the former Stasi agents. Claire Saylor (a key characters in The Cover Wife) has been contacting former Stasi agents to see if they have information they want to sell. She’s going behind her boss’ back to get off-the-books help from Clark Baucom, a retired CIA agent. The DDO assigns another agent to keep her under control. That agent also has a central role in The Cover Wife, making Winter Work the origin story of their teamwork.

Claire and her partner take an interest in Emil. That interest leads to conflict with the Russian and to escalating tension as the story nears its climax. The action is never over-the-top — this isn’t a tough guy novel — but the risks faced by the novel’s central characters create fear that the reader shares.

Dan Fesperman is a reliable spy novelist. Winter Work is rooted in Cold War history, as Fesperman explains in his acknowledgements. I don’t usually read acknowledgements, but Fesperman’s explanation of CIA and Russian activities soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall adds interest to the story.

Given the horrible reputation of the Stasi, it’s intriguing that Fesperman makes Emil a sympathetic figure. As Claire notes, Emil is “an adversary who has already been defeated.” He doesn’t seem to deserve further punishment, particularly the kind of punishment that will be awaiting him if he’s caught. Emil’s disabled wife encouraged him to form a sexual bond with her caretaker. Emil’s devotion to both of them, the fact that he didn’t actually order anyone’s death as a Stasi agent, and his remorse for being on the wrong side of history make it possible for the reader to hope he survives. In the tradition of strong spy novels, Winter Work illustrates how fuzzy the line between good guys and bad guys can become in the shadowy world of espionage.

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The Silent Sisters by Robert Dugoni

Published by Thomas & Mercer on February 22, 2022

The Silent Sisters is the third novel to feature Charles Jenkins, a retired CIA agent who returned to the agency to carry out a mission in Russia. The novels are all premised on a traitor’s betrayal of seven women in Russia who have served as spies for America. The traitor made Russia aware of their existence but not of each woman’s identity. When Russia discovers their identities, the women die. Jenkins has been tasked with rescuing the survivors before Russia can identify them.

As a tall black man, Jenkins is far from inconspicuous when he enters Russia. Since he was exposed as a CIA agent in the first novel, his ability to pull off a rescue in the second novel strained credibility. In The Silent Sisters, the CIA has given Jenkins a disguise kit that lets him pass as a shorter white man, among other costume changes. That all seems a bit Mission: Impossible, but I willingly suspended by disbelief as the story moved forward. The Silent Sisters is easily the best of the three novels.

Jenkins’ mission is to rescue Maria Kulivoka, the last of the Seven Sisters who is still living in Russia. Maria works for a director of the FSB, Dmitry Sokalov, her unwitting source of classified information. Maria does sexual favors for Sokalov to stay in his good graces, including favors that disgust her. The favors combine with alcohol to make Sokalov forget that he’s revealing classified information. Maria is in a dangerous position not only because she is spying for America, but because Sokalov might be tempted to kill her to keep their affair from being known to his powerful father-in-law.

Early in the story, Jenkins goes into a Russian bar for a beer and a meal. He intervenes when a thug beats a prostitute. Events lead to the thug getting shot, although not by Jenkins. The thug turns out to be the son of a crime boss, making Jenkins marked for death by Putin (thanks to his successful missions in earlier novels) and by a criminal organization.

The shooting is investigated by Arkhip Mishkin, an honest and sympathetic character who is approaching retirement. Mishkin doesn’t want to leave a case unsolved before he retires. To that end, he also wants to find Jenkins, if only to ask him for his version of the thug’s killing.

Strong women had played a significant role in this series. Their strength is fueled by their will to survive. Spies who betray their countries risk daily exposure, so it isn’t surprising that Maria is tough. She achieves that toughness by bottling up the rage she feels toward Sokalov and her disgust with herself. As a crime boss who ascended to the throne when her father was murdered, Yekaterina Velikaya must also play a role to survive. Neither woman can allow her true personality to emerge, if one even exists at this point. Maria nevertheless softens a bit during a long train ride toward potential freedom, when she has long platonic chats with a man that show her a side of life she has been missing.

As always, the plot moves quickly and generates reasonable suspense. Jenkins is your basic aging spy who would rather be bonding with his kids than doing his patriotic duty in Russia. Maria and Mishkin and even Yakaterina are more complex characters. They give the story its heart, elevating The Silent Sisters above a standard action novel.

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BOX 88 by Charles Cumming

Published in Great Britain in 2020; published by Mysterious Press on January 11, 2022

Lachlan Kite works for an off-the-books organization created by intelligence agents from the US and the UK. The organization, known as BOX 88, hasn’t been authorized by either government. Few people know that it exists, although key CIA and MI6 agents divert their agency funds to BOX 88.

Kite was born and raised in Scotland, where his parents operated a hotel. When his father died, his mother sent him to Alford, a boarding school for the elite that Kite attended on a scholarship. Kite got into the requisite amount of boarding school trouble, usually in the company of his friend Xavier Bonnard, the son of an elite father. A “beak” (teacher) at Alford named Billy Peele spotted Kite’s potential for intelligence work and recruited him into BOX 88. Kite’s friendship with Xavier positioned him for a special assignment before he started college.

The story begins with Kite attending Xavier’s funeral. He meets a woman who has a flawed cover story. Kite correctly assumes that the woman is with MI5 and that she’s investigating BOX 88. Kite also meets an Iranian who claims to have been a friend of Xavier. Kite is inclined to believe the Iranian until he’s kidnapped and interrogated. The kidnapper questions Kite about his first mission. Kite weaves a story while denying that he was a spy when he visited the vacation home of Xavier’s family in France. As Kite answers or dodges questions, he recalls his childhood, recruitment, and efforts to gather intelligence on an Iranian guest of Xavier’s father, Luc Bonnard. He also recalls the passion he felt for Martha Raine.

Most spy novels are about betrayal. Kite feels that he is betraying his friendship with Xavier by taking advantage of the friendship to spy on Luc Bonnard’s Iranian friend. He feels that he is at least indirectly spying on Xavier’s family, a feeling that intensifies as Kite’s mission continues. In the present, Kite comes to feel that he has been betraying his wife by concealing the truth about his occupation, particularly after the kidnapper tries to gain leverage over Kite by threatening to kill his wife.

Charles Cumming balances action and characterization as the novel switches between Kite’s captivity in the present and his intelligence gathering as a teen. Both the scenes in Kite’s teen years and in the present build suspense. Aspects of the ending come as a surprise.

BOX 88 is apparently an origin story, the first in a series of books that will feature Kite and his clandestine organization. I hope that’s true. Cumming’s spy novels have generally been enjoyable if a bit uneven. BOX 88 is one of his best.

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